Universal healthcare as pandemic preparedness: The lives and costs that could have been saved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: The fragmented and inefficient healthcare system in the United States leads to many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs every year. During a pandemic, the lives saved and economic benefits of a single-payer universal healthcare system relative to the status quo would be even greater. For Americans who are uninsured and underinsured, financial barriers to COVID-19 care delayed diagnosis and exacerbated transmission. Concurrently, deaths beyond COVID-19 accrued from the background rate of uninsurance. Universal healthcare would alleviate the mortality caused by the confluence of these factors. To evaluate the repercussions of incomplete insurance coverage in 2020, we calculated the elevated mortality attributable to the loss of employer-sponsored insurance and to background rates of uni

SUBMITTER: Galvani AP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9231482 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature